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I would like to take this occasion to lie to you all and tell you that there are few things in life that I hate. I could get away with it if you didn’t know me so well. Reading that I had no dislikes, peeves, or hate-ons, would amuse you wildly since I am frequently in the middle of being actively annoyed about something. It can be a momentary fancy, or it can be something that I am really invested in, but regardless of which category it falls under, I cherish my dislikes, which are many, and I cherish my hatreds even more, because there just aren’t as many of those. It is difficult at this stage of my life, to dredge up anything to be peevish about, most of the time. Then there are those occasions when I wake up on the wrong side of the bed, even if I’m sleeping in a chair. I get up with a scowl that goes from the surface of my forehead to the back of my skull. It’s a serious thing being a Grinch, and I take my duties quite seriously. What’s the use of being bewitched, and bothered if you can’t bewilder someone?

On grumpy days, there is an extra zing to my life; no dragging footsteps those days. I want to get right at what it is that is concussing my psyche, but first I have to figure out what it is. Or who it is. Whos are always easier than whats, because we remember the whos and know the whats and whys before they leave the room. Unpremeditated or unexpected grumping can be anything in a long list. I don’t go through them all, but I usually know the category it falls into, so it doesn’t take that long. There are days when I have no idea why I’m going around being a rip-roaring pain in the ass, I just am. Which makes an interesting model for Descartes to play with: I grump, therefore I am. Not quite as eloquent as his original little philosophical bon mot, but equally good, I flatter myself.

I dislike spiders, snakes, and bugs, but I don’t hate them. They are sometimes to be feared, and forever to be avoided if at all possible. They aren’t worth hating. I dislike idiots and professional victims, but again, not worth hating. I once spent five years or more saying that I hated Sigourney Weaver, but it was just a goof, and something to talk about. Oh look, it’s raining cats and dogs, and by the way, I hate Sigourney Weaver. Those were the good old days, but I’ve moved on. I hate it when parents take babies and small children to movies, and the little tykes cry or babble all the way through. That’s worth being annoyed about, because their idiot parents, whom I would merely dislike for being idiots, have moved up a grade to hatred, and totally bypassed loathing. Congratulations, morons, I hate you today, and probably tomorrow and the next day as well. I hate music so loud that I can hear it from three blocks away. I hate clueless tools that drive around booming rap music from speakers that are amped to the max. Those useless idiots are privileged white kids that have nothing to feel disaffected about, so they affect their disaffection and my house shakes as they drive by. Fortunately, we now have a noise ordinance, so it may be that those times are waning. I hope so.

I hate licorice ,and just the smell of anise can sometimes set me off. I don’t mind the occasional whiff of it from seasonal cookies or rye breads, but if there is one thing I hate, it’s black licorice. The red tastes soapy, and therefore doesn’t bother me. Things that taste soapy mean something has been mass produced on the cheap with little real flavor. Black licorice has too much flavor, and taste; my mouth flat-lines in a rictus of disgust, even just thinking about it. I tried hard to like licorice, because when I was a child, some well-meaning adult or elderly person who loved licorice and bought it by the crate,was always fancying themselves generous and kind by handing us a licorice stick or a little piece of candy with a licorice center. Those were the worst ones, because you would be happily sucking away at sugary carbohydrates of doom, and suddenly, the most dreadful smell wafted up to your tortured nose at the same time your taste buds were screaming, spit spit spit it out! Of course, not being raised by wolves, but by parents with good eyesight and the will to punish any social faux pas, meant that I had to swallow it even if it choked me. The only thing worse than black licorice is liver, but that’s something else entirely, and maybe if it had been prepared properly, even once, instead of being fried into submission with limp, wimpy onions who feared my mother more than the bacon grease, then I might have liked it. Or at least only mildly disliked it. But no, I hate it. Hate it hate it hate it.

Strangely enough there was a black licorice that I could eat. Not the twisted sticks of licorice or the licorice pipes that abounded at St. Patrick’s Day, but the long skinny strings of black licorice that were wound up into circles maybe one and a half inches in diameter. I suspect that those were mass produced on the cheap with little flavor, so I liked those, because they didn’t really taste like licorice or anise; they didn’t really taste like anything at all. You could pull a bit off and chew it as you liked, without actually tasting anything. My brothers and I would pretend we were cowboys or bad guys chewing tobacco. Not only did we stuff our mouths with black messy stuff, but we would spit on the ground and talk in gruff voices, and call each other partner or Lucky, or Vince or Big Bill.

I dislike grasshoppers, locusts, bees, hornets, frogs, toads, ants, and anything vaguely like an insect. I am afraid of alligators, wolves, grizzly bears, but they are easily avoided. I hate lying unscrupulous politicians, but they are not so easily avoided. I hate people that want to impose their will on me, while doing the complete opposite for themselves and their families. I hate the idea of a one world government because it’s dangerous, unscrupulous, and a really bad idea. I dislike the United Nations because they are not at all united. Better the U.N. stood for useless nitwits, because that seems to be what they are best known for.

I hate oysters, liver sausage, cucumbers, and the fact that I can’t eat ice cream more than once every two months or so. I am mildly bemused by the fact that though I can’t digest cucumbers, I am partial to pickles and eat way too many of them. I hate that I can’t eat Cheez Whiz in massive quantities, and that I’m better off avoiding dairy products in general. I save up my points for the holidays and then I indulge in whipped cream, and sometimes the demon Cheez Whiz rears it’s ugly head. I hate traveling, but I like where I’m going. It’s just the part in between that I hate. I don’t mind going to the doctor or the dentist, but I hate the part in between broken and fixed. It’s the getting fixed that’s the problem. I hate driving myself crazy trying to straighten my hair, but I like it when it happens. Same thing with hair color. It’s messy and it smells awful, but the results can often be spectacular.

I hate it whenever my husband says he’s going to fix something if he can only figure out the problem. By now, I know from experience that it will end up being the third or fourth thing he tries, and he will have spent money on parts that he didn’t need in the first place. I like the fact that I have given up being frustrated with this penchant of his, because I can’t be spending all of my time yelling at him. I hate making plans, because if I make plans, it turns out badly or it doesn’t happen at all. Sometimes if I don’t want to do something, I plan to do it anyway, and something always happens to prevent it. You might call this sheer luck, but I modestly call it genius.

I hate alcohol of any kind; can’t drink it and can’t stand the smell of it either. Walking past a bar on a hot day makes me physically ill. I consider that sensible for someone who is gluten intolerant, since most beers and many alcohols are fermented with things that I can’t eat. I know there are beers that are gluten free, but beer has never interested me, although chocolate milk always has. It’s still a struggle to pass it up in the store, but imbibing would make me thirstier, and sick, so pass it I will.

I hated having to wait this many years for Boondock Saints 2 and often joked that it would be a sure sign of the End Times if it ever came out. The End Times will be the End Times with or without the Boondock Saints. Just maybe it’s a sign that Troy Duffy finally got his act together, whatever else is going on. Now that it’s out, I have to count the days until it is released on DVD. I can tell you when that is: not soon enough for true believers in the boys from Beantown. Monkey and I are still trying to get Meerkat to watch the first movie, and that is still our mission in life. Maybe it’s really not a mission, but more of a diversion, and I am excessively diverted. I may not succeed, but I have full faith in Monkey. No matter how often you say no, he keeps on asking, until people capitulate in self-defense. You know, after rethinking it, maybe the real sign of the End Times will be Meerkat watching the movie without anyone asking her to. Stranger things have happened. The Vikings started the season at 6 and 0. What could be stranger than that? Maybe a game where Favre doesn’t throw an interception, but that brings us back to the End Times, so let’s just cross our fingers and think of Boston. Or not.